"You are just mad at god"--Are we actually encouraging this by mistake?

You've all heard the claim that we aren't really atheists, we are just mad at god. (Or you will see such things as "so and so claims to be an atheist.")

Today, though I saw an argument in chat with a theist, and someone else's account of an argument they had out in public, and I stopped to wonder if maybe we aren't sometimes encouraging this line of bullshit, albeit unwittingly.

What happened in both cases was the atheist began recounting all the sorts of horrible things Yahweh is portrayed as doing or believing or commanding. In one case, I saw the atheist say "why should I love god when he won't love me back?"

The problem with this sort of thing is we usually don't take care to phrase our remarks to make it clear that god is a character of fiction. When discussing the misdeeds of Yahweh we tend to fall back on a convention we use when we talk about a fictional character in a book. We refer to him by name and talk as if the guy was real and the book was not fiction, for example, "In George Orwell's 1984, Winston Smith was arrested for thoughtcrime," not, "In George Orwell's 1984, the character Winston Smith..."

We know what we mean, because we both know Winston Smith (or god) is fictitious. But they don't know god is fictitious.

Talking this way with someone who believes the fictional character is real might cause him not to understand you are just following the convention. Your phrasing sounds to him like you accept god as real, he "knows" god is real, so he assumes at some level you think god is real.

What I am suggesting here is that you ever want to bring up how nasty this being is, you make it clear that you don't think he exists, make sure you put "fictitious" (or equivalent) in every other sentence at least, and not let them think for a minute that you assume the existence of god.

Yes I know that when you just said you were an atheist this shouldn't be necessary, but obviously many of these people don't understand atheism in their guts, so don't let their paradigm default you into a "believer but mad at god" box.

Replies to This Discussion

"There shall be no compulsion in the religion,"no compulsion in converting or leaving islam,people should feel free to be muslim or to not to be,to be a muslim because your parent or the society or because the previous formation it does not mean that this muslim is now freely muslim,so whenever he or she wants to change ,first islam should guarantee this right to him or to her,there is no compulsion,second ,to be muslim after thinking better than to be a member of herd.It's not cited in the book who changes his religion should be executed,and if there is hadith,this hadith is in clear contradiction with what is clear and fundamental in the book,the supremacy is for the book not al hadith,and this is rule. now the compulsion is not only in converting or leaving is during all someone 's life,he /she totally free to be fully guided by islamic doctrine or not the religion did not nominate any one to look after people to see if they are obedient or not,even the ruler has no right to interfere in this,because,if i am a muslim so this is between me and Allah,is not between man and other power whatever.NO HYPOCRISY,OR DOUBLE FACED WITH GOD,PEOPLE SHOULD LEFT FREE AT LEAST WITH THEIR INVISIBLE GOD.

I don't doubt you Lonely - by that, I mean that I believe you are sincere in your beliefs. But I can't understand why there are other Muslims who seem to believe and behave differently, and think that those should be killed who do not believe in your religion. I think that that is the reason that so many of us, in the West, have such a problem with Islam, all of the violence --

Tell me, do you agree with this?

"Do not believe in anything simply because you have heard it.Do not believe in anything simply because it is spoken and rumored by many.Do not believe in anything simply because it is found written in your religious books.Do not believe in anything merely on the authority of your teachers and elders.Do not believe in traditions because they have been handed down for many generations.But after observation and analysis, when you find that anything agrees with reason and is conducive to the good and benefit of one and all, then accept it and live up to it."-- Buddha --

"Do not believe in anything simply because you have heard it.Do not believe in anything simply because it is spoken and rumored by many.RE:Do not believe in anything simply because it is found written in your religious books.Do not believe in anything merely on the authority of your teachers and elders.Do not believe in traditions because they have been handed down for many generations.But after observation and analysis, when you find that anything agrees with reason and is conducive to the good and benefit of one and all, then accept it and live up to it."-- Buddha --

YES and after observation and analysis.......yes i accept it and i live up to it.The good and the benefit of the one and all is evaluated and estimated,differ according time and circumstances,and can cited here what is translated like this:Wherethere isinterest, there isthe "law" of God.

About the other muslims,i can't blame them but i will if they move one step from saying to acting,many muslims in this country are agree with seeing god as mercy not indignation.and did not create people to revenge on them.

Lonely, let me explain exactly how I think and feel. You are about the age, I would guess, to be my son, so I will speak to you as I would a son.

There is a rule of life, in my belief system, that you have every right in the world to swing your fist, in any and all directions. That is your right, and I have no right to stop you. But your right to swing your fist stops when you reach my nose. Once you hit my nose with your fist, your rights end. What does that have to do with anything, you might ask. I will explain.

I am an atheist. I do not believe any gods exist. But that is my belief, and I have every right to believe it, but I do not have a right to force others to believe it, just as you do not have a right to make your fist hit my nose. In my belief system, I would be wrong to expect others to believe as I do.

I feel that Jews have every right to believe or not believe in their Yahweh, Christians should have every right to believe in their Yeshua and Yahweh, and Muslims have every right to believe in Allah, which is the Arabic name for Yahweh, and in your Muhammad. I have no right to demand that you change your beliefs to match mine.

But Muslims, Christians and Jews also have no right to expect me to believe as they do. If we can both accept that, then we have no disagreement.

What I CAN do, is I can try to show that about 80 percent of the Judeo/Christian Bible is untrue, are fables and made-up stories, leaving only about 20 percent actual, provable Jewish history. And I am doing that, chapter by chapter, on my own website, in His own image.

The Quran is based on the Jewish religion, it shares the same patriarch, Abraham, as does the Bible. But if I can prove the part of the Bible that the Quran uses, is not true, then that means that at least that part of the Quran is not true either. And if Muslims believe that Allah personally inspired Muhammad to write the Quran, and if I demonstrate that those parts of the Quran are not true, then that either means that Allah did NOT inspire Muhammad to write those parts, that in fact, he copied them from the Hebrew Bible, or it means that Allah fed Muhammad false information. I think, given the choice, most Muslims would rather believe that Muhammad lied, than to believe that Allah did.

The point I'm trying to make, Lonely, is that I can not stop anyone from believing anything they wish to believe, as they have no right to stop me from believing what I want to believe either. But I CAN, and intend to continue, to expose the Bible as largely being an untrue book. If I ever finish that, and it is a long project, I will then next begin with the Quran, and you may not like what I discover.

When s.o treats you as a son it's an honor,when i read your post i smiled and i felt touched by your words,so thank you very much.

I am agree with your analogy,and it's fair.believing or not believing is a choice.it's an individual way to be close to this universe or to make such relationship with it so no one has the right to stop this path or to block it.

Re:Allah, which is the Arabic name for Yahweh.In Arabic we use Allah and this is the god name,all other words describing Allah,adjectives if you like .the origin of this word allah is from the Cannaite Language,the word is ELAH,you may remember,what Yeshua said while his crucifixion:ELAHI WHY HAVE YOU FORSAKEN ME"HE SAID THIS IN CANAANITE LANGUAGE HIS LANGUAGE,also it's Hebrew word EL, AND ARABIC AND WE KNOW THAT THE THREE LANGUAGES ARE Semitic,and languages from the same origin can exchange words and meaning.

RE:The Quran is based on the Jewish religion, it shares the same patriarch, Abraham,

yes the islamic religion and the quran assure that islam is continuation of the abraham traditionوusing the word "heritage"and Judaism,Christianity and Islam are all "Heavenlyreligions"from the same origin,the link between them is it's getting easier and easier from one to another.kind of gradual transition,the Quran at least 2/3 of it is telling the stories of bani israeel,their prophets and their life,muslim is believing in all Jewish prophets from Moses,Solomon,Joseph.... they believe in them but they are not obliged to follow them in their laws i mean not the way how they worship for example which is out of question. the notion Ahl kitab refer to Jewish and christian.

RE:And if Muslims believe that Allah personally inspired Muhammad to write the Quran.

what the muslim believe is the book is from god words and meaning,mohamed has nothing to do it with the quran,and i can add here that in history there was a long discussion between scholars Quran is it a creature by god (like he created for example human)or Quran is god's speech,most of them till now believe quran is "kalam allah" god's speech.

without entering to the details,i think if you want to work on this books you may need to know exactly how muslim for example believe about Quran.

i have question ;what do you mean 'untrue' is it recording to History or science?

And i will try to understand what you will discover not like or dislike.

Lonely - RE: "you may remember,what Yeshua said while his crucifixion:ELAHI WHY HAVE YOU FORSAKEN ME"HE SAID THIS IN CANAANITE LANGUAGE HIS LANGUAGE,also it's Hebrew word EL, AND ARABIC AND WE KNOW THAT THE THREE LANGUAGES ARE Semitic,and languages from the same origin can exchange words and meaning."

Actually, Yeshua (if he ever actually existed) spoke Aramaic (also Semitic), and according to the Bible, he said, "Eloi," which is also another Hebrew name for god.

Originally, the entire area of Mesopotamia was settled by the Sumerians - it is believed that some Chinese migrated away from China, settled in what is now Turkey for a few hundred years, mixing with the indigenous population there, then some continued on to Mesopotamia, where they finally settled in Iraq, near the Persian Gulf. They formed a Theocratic civilization there that lasted for 4,000 years. Gradually, certain nomadic, Semitic tribes moved into Northern Mesopotamia, establishing small city-states, finally creating a capital at Akkad, in the North. The majority of these were Akkadian. Through a series of wars, over several hundred years, the Akkadians controlled all of Mesopotamia, and the Sumerian language was replaced by the Semitic language, Akkadian (the Sumerian language lived on only as it was the language used for religious ceremonies, much as Latin lives on within the Catholic Church and true Egyptian lives on only within the Egyptian Coptic church).

The great Akkadian king, Sargon, opened a passage from Mesopotamia to the Mediterranean Sea, to create trade routes. This allowed Mesopotamians to move freely throughout the region - some settled into Canaan, becoming the Cannanites. Some Cannanites became quite adept at sailing and became sea traders - these were called, "Phoenicians" by the Greeks with whom they traded.

Eventually, however, Amorites (or Amurrites), also a Semitic people, filtered into Mesopotamia from Syria and did the same thing the Akkadians had done centuries earlier - they built small cities, grew, became a military force, and eventually took over Mesopotamia, which they ruled for 500 years. Hammurabi is probably the most famous Amurrite that most of us know of.

Abraham (if he ever existed) would have been either Akkadian or Amurrite, but most likely Amurrite, since in the Bible, Laban, the nephew of Abraham, is always referred to as, "Laban the Syrian." The Amurrites worshiped a god, "Amurru," which is where they got their name. Another name for Amurru was "El Shaddai."

When in the Bible, the Bible's god introduced himself to Abraham (if he ever existed), he introduced himself as "El Shaddai." Later, in Exodus, when the Bible's god spoke to Moses (if he ever existed) through a burning bush (no relation to George W), he said his name was Yahweh, but added that Abraham, Isaac and Jacob/Israel (if they ever existed) knew him as "El Shaddai." As it happens, Moses (if he ever existed) was staying with a family of Kennites (in fact, he married one), who followed a god they called YHWH, and suddenly the god of Abraham, Amurru, became Yahweh. The remaining Hebrews had been in Egypt for 400 years, and had all but forgotten their original culture, so it was easy for Moses to make the switch.

It should be obvious that Man made all of this stuff up, not some divine being. There is absolutely no evidence that Noah, Abraham, Isaac, Jacob/Israel, or even Jesus, ever existed.

YES,the Aramaic language,was a mistake to say Canaanite.the Jewish when they moved to Palestine they used canaanite language with the aramaic language,and they spoke a mixture of both languages.we continue.

I'm still not sure how to phrase things when I have theological conversations with people. Then again, I’m a “new atheist” as in; I just admitted it to myself. Still can’t admit it to my family. But I do get the same weird, “well, you’ll understand when you lived longer” or “you don’t understand now but I know god will change your mind one day.” Or my favorite, “But you’re so nice, you’re such a good person.”

I’m starting to tell people before we get into it that I want to have a logical conversation and not a religious one. Tho, it never works with my mother. Lol. I feel like it will catch on one day. Convert them with logic.

the fact that someone does not believe in god (no god)is it because this god is not visible,can not be seen or touched and it is not composed of matter,or because of the crimes committed in this world in his name,?

In my case Lonely, it is because there is no proof that any supernatural being, whether he is called god, or Eloi, or El Shaddai, or Amurru, or Yahweh, or Allah, exists.

The Hebrew Bible, the Tanakh, bases it's belief in a god on the words of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob/Israel, so does the Judeo/Christian Bible - even Yeshua is quoted as speaking of Abraham, Noah, and Moses, and you yourself have stated that the Quran is based on the Abrahamic traditions.

William G. Dever was the son of a fundamentalist preacher. From a small Christian liberal arts college in Tennessee, he went to a Protestant theological seminary that exposed him to "critical study" of the Bible, a study that at first he resisted. In 1960 it was on to Harvard and a doctorate in biblical theology. For thirty-five years he worked as an archaeologist, excavating in the Near East. Remember now, this man was raised and educated, surrounded by religion.

With all of his religious background, after thirty-five years doing archaeological studies in Israel, Dr. Dever said:

"After a century of exhaustive investigation, all respectable archaeologists have given up hope of recovering any context that would make Abraham, Isaac, or Jacob credible 'historical figures.'" He writes of the archaeological investigation of Moses and the Exodus as having been "discarded as a fruitless pursuit."

If the Bible isn't true, then everything based on the Bible, and that includes the New Testament and the Quran, cannot be true either.

Lonely, men learned very quickly how to control other men, by telling them that there is an invisible being out there that sees everything they do, and if those people don't do exactly what the Ministers, or the Priests, or the Mullahs tell them to do, then this invisible being will do bad things to them. A frightened, superstitious population thus does as it is told.

Religion began because early man did not understand how the world worked, and decided that some supernatural being made things happen the way they did. Then other men realized that religion could be used to control the population, and so, here we are --

yes,quran and islam is a continuation of the abraham heritage in monotheism,but is not "everything based on the bible" yeshua is not the god son,in Quran for example.and there is many differences between the three books,we like it or not.

the second point remind me marks and his "religion is opium of the ppl",if this ppl are worshiping their god under pressure or felt helpless or powerless,i think simply this is not an enough reason to give a reasonable explanation to this phenomena.

there is no proof that any supernatural being,do you really believe that is there any proof any kind of proof can support the idea of the existing god?